Figure 7.

Activation of the inflammasome in macrophages decreases the intracellular survival of Mycobacterium bovis. (A) Bacterial CFU/mL of macrophages infected with M. bovis for 4 h, washed to eliminate non-phagocytosed bacteria, and incubated with staurosporine (5 µM) to induce apoptosis or with LPS (300 ng/mL) and nigericin (50 µM) to induce pyroptosis. The infected macrophages were lysed 24 h later, and the lysed cells were diluted and seeded on agar to calculate the CFU/mL. (B) CFU/mL of M. bovis exposed to staurosporine (5 µM) or LPS (300 ng/mL) and nigericin (50 µM) for 24 h. The exposed mycobacteria were recovered and seeded on agar to calculate CFU/mL. Results are shown as the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. Differences among treatments were tested with a one-way ANOVA. * p value ≤ 0.05, *** p value ≤ 0.0001.